Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
INTRODUCTION xiii
He was the first leader of his country in a period when the
battles of the spirit on the fields of politics and economics,
ethics, and esthetics were the only form of conflict, —
a leader evoking, developing, and guiding the powers of
his nation into fuller and higher life. In his many-sided-
ness Bjérnson was also in his time the first skald of his
people, almost equally endowed with genius as a narra-
tive, a dramatic, and a lyric poet; with talents scarcely less
remarkable as an orator, a theater-director, a journalistic
tribune of the people (his newspaper articles amounted,
roughly estimated, to ten thousand book-pages), a letter-
writer, and a conversationalist.
If, furthermore, we take into account also Bjérnson’s
labors and achievements in the domain of action more nar-
rowly considered, it is no wonder that his Poems and Songs
make only a small volume. Examining the book more
closely, we find that three-quarters of its pages were writ-
ten before the year 1875, so that the lyrical output, here
published, of the thirty-four years thereafter amounts to
but fifty pages. From the year 1874 on in Bjornson’s life
the chieftain supplanted the skald, so far as lyrical utter-
ance was concerned. He was leading his nation in thought
and action on the fields of theology and religion, of politics,
economics, and social reform; he was tireless in making
speeches, in writing letters and newspaper articles; his
poetic genius flowed out copiously in the dramatic and epic
channels of his numerous modern plays, novels, and stories.
That soon after 1874 Bjornson passed through a crisis
in his personal thought and inner life was probably, in view
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
